Nature's Many Quirks
Limit the Possibilities
Of DNA-Based Drugs

By

Sharon Begley Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Nov. 11, 2005 12:01 a.m. ET

If only the B-Raf gene weren't microscopic, scientists would have painted a big, fat bull's-eye on it.

This gene, researchers discovered in 2002, is mutated in some two-thirds of all melanomas. The mutation activates a protein that triggers a dastardly biochemical cascade, apparently leading to this deadly skin cancer. A company discovered a drug to knock out the rogue protein, engaging in the sort of "gene-based drug...